Panama Riots Erupt After Coup Try Fails

PANAMA CITY — Military leader Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega survived a coup attempt by a small group of Panamanian senior officers that touched off violent rioting Wednesday.

Shots were fired at dawn inside the headquarters of the military high command, and troops were rushed in to surround the three-story building as crowds gathered outside. But about two hours later Noriega appeared on the steps with loyal members of his general staff to show the world he was still in power.

When reporters asked about the gunfire, the smiling general replied,

``Kisses,`` and then blew kisses with his hand to the crowd below. Then he disappeared inside the building, known as the Central Barracks.

Eight or nine rebellious officers led by Panama`s police commander, Col. Leonidas Macias, were arrested without bloodshed, according to the government. Macias was one of two general staff officers who appeared on the government-run television station Feb. 25 to pledge the military`s support for Noriega about an hour after President Eric Delvalle sought to relieve the general of his command.

A government communique indirectly blamed the U.S. for instigating Wednesday`s coup attempt, which it said was carried out by officers recently returned from training in the U.S.

There were unconfirmed reports from residents around the barracks that at least four of the rebel soldiers had been shot, and there were other reports that Macias may have been killed.

Immediately after the coup attempt, the streets of the capital exploded in rioting.

Angry government workers who have not been paid by the cash-starved regime took to the streets by the thousands, throwing rocks and igniting barricades made of garbage in most downtown blocks. Traffic was snarled throughout the city.

The protesters also torched cars and fields of dry grass, looted stores and burned down at least one building, the Supercentro Tivoli, a large department store on Central Avenue in the besieged downtown business district. The fire burned all day, and passersby stole merchandise when the building finally collapsed.

Paramilitary forces in plain clothes turned out, firing shotguns to quell the disturbances. They were followed later by carloads of uniformed riot police.

Residents of Panama City, the capital, which holds about half of Panama`s 2.2 million people, were without electricty, water and telephone service in many places. Workers at all three utilities defected in greater numbers Wednesday to join the de facto general strike that began with the cash crunch. Teachers, dock workers, health care workers and other government employees walked off their jobs Monday and Tuesday to protest the regime`s failure to meet payrolls.

Outside General Hospital, hundreds of doctors and nurses formed a human barrier across the Trans-Isthmian Highway for the second day.

Dock workers from the Port of Balboa at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal sealed off the port and some American military facilities used by forces from the 10,000-member U.S. Southern Command.

U.S. military personnel and embassy staff were put on a heightened state of alert and ordered to stay inside for much of the day.

Immediately after the takeover attempt, Noriega was asked what he intended to do about paying Panama`s 150,000 government workers.

He replied, ``Tell the gringos to give us back the money that they robbed.``

The Reagan administration has engineered the freezing of some $50 million in Panamanian assets held in U.S. banks and imposed trade sanctions, including blocking payment to Panama of about $6.5 million a month in fees for use of the Panama Canal.

Officers at the scene of the coup attempt at first tried to pass off the gunfire as a ``routine training exercise designed to test the perimeter of the base.``

However, the Panama Defense Forces issued a communique later acknowledging that an overthrow had been attempted and blaming the U.S. for turning the officers into ``traitors.``

The communique said no one was hurt, but witnesses living on the upper floors of neighboring tenements said they had seen at least four officers shot inside the compound.

The communique called the action ``isolated`` and listed Macias, three majors and a captain as among those arrested.